Wishing Well
by shirozora
Summary: While teaching Steve how to woo Peggy Howard falls in love.
1. the kind of night you want to be out

**Disclaimer:** All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libelous, defamatory, or in any way factual.

**Author's Note: **Written for the prompt "Steve's not the most experienced guy or just isn't a very good kisser. So I'd like one of the Starks (I'd be perfectly content with Howard or Tony) to help him out by offering to teach him a thing or two" on the Cap Kink Meme.

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><p><strong>Wishing Well<strong>

**1: on the kind of night where you want to be out**

He's on his sixth sketch of Steve's new uniform when he realizes he won't be getting anything else done today. It's not that he's stuck in a rut - he has a USO poster, stained with watered down coffee and folded over in one corner, and Steve's own doodles to help him fulfill a war hero's request - but that he keeps drawing Steve's upper body and then including the signature star and a dash of colors as an afterthought.

He can't help it; he may thrive on progress and the nonstop evolution of technology, but he can't stop marveling at the perfection Dr. Erskine managed to achieve with the human body. And it's because he can't stop marveling, or expressing his admiration on paper because who said inventors couldn't also be artists, that he decides to close shop early. He can't perform at his very best when he's distracted, and General Phillips and the war demand nothing but the best.

"Boys," he says to the two assistants still with him in the lab. "I think we've done enough for today. Take the rest of the night off and come back tomorrow at seven."

"Are you sure, Mr. Stark?" Jamie asks while George immediately starts putting away Morita's modified radio kit.

"When was the last time you went out for a drink without the Nazis dropping bombs on your head?"

The ringing silence is answer enough. Quickly the assistants tidy up the workplace and help Howard stow away the skeleton of a motorcycle. They're obviously eager to get out tonight; everyone's still basking in the glow of Steve's incredible success and sirens haven't gone off even once in the last ten hours. It's a good mood, a swell mood, the kind that tells you to relax and live a little.

Howard shuffles the loose leafs into a manageable stack on his desk and then looks up when he hears something vibration-absorbing hit a work table.

"Leave that there," he says and George puts down the round half-painted shield. Jamie is at the door, waiting.

"Will that be all, Mr. Stark?" George asks as he pulls on his jacket.

"Yes-wait." He frowns at the three bent slugs on the desk next to the stacks of sketches and layouts. "Either of you know where Steve would be right now?"

"Captain America?" Jamie says. "Well, I don't know where _he _would be but a lot of folks go to the Whip and Fiddle Pub after hours, when there isn't a bomb raid."

"Huh. Okay." He picks up a slug and rubs his thumb over the flattened head, recalling the rapid thunks as each bullet hit the shield and fell to Steve's feet. He's jerked out of his reverie when someone politely clears his throat and realizes his assistants are still in the lab. "Yes, that is all."

They're gone in the blink of an eye, leaving Howard to contemplate the slug in his hand and the sketch on top of the pile that's less a study of how the new uniform will look on Steve and more how Steve looks as himself.

* * *

><p>The Whip and Fiddle Pub is smoky, crowded, and full of soldiers and the more daring members of the local working class. Howard may be wearing the closest approximation to civilian dress that's in his portable wardrobe and isn't smudged with grease but he still feels overdressed. He doesn't even know what he's doing here, which is something that doesn't ever happen. Being uncertain and hesitant isn't something he does very often, but here he is, wedging himself into the pub as a trio of cheerfully tipsy American soldiers show themselves out.<p>

It's the raucous singing that draws his attention first and he gets a glimpse of a dingy bowler hat, but before he can move towards it he sees Sergeant Barnes talking to a very pretty lady next to the piano. Howard starts in that direction, bumping elbows with people he otherwise wouldn't, but he gets as far as three feet across before the drunken choir at the table in the middle of the establishment abruptly stop serenading and start shouting for more beer. Howard stops walking as well when he sees Steve stand up and start forging a path to the bartender; he's at least half a head taller than everybody else in the room and with that head of blond hair he's like a lighthouse.

This is when he realizes that he's here because he wants to talk to Steve. About his uniform and his shield and the equipment for his hand-picked team and the motorcycles and the strange element he snatched up at the HYDRA base and Peggy and perhaps a more thorough explanation about fondue... someone bumps into him, jolting him out of his speeding thoughts. He kneads his temple, takes a deep breath, and berates himself as he follows the moving lighthouse to the bar.

"...five beers," Steve says to the flabbergasted man behind the bar. "Wait...hey Bucky!"

Barnes, Howard notes, is making a beeline for the door while still talking with the woman. Steve hasn't noticed yet so Howard decides to spare him the embarrassment and taps him on the shoulder.

"Mr. Stark?"

"We're in a pub, just call me Howard." He leans on the polished counter and takes a good look at the super soldier. Steve doesn't look as tipsy as Howard expected him to be. In fact he looks very sober, and Howard thinks back on some of the things Erskine said were possible side effects of the serum. "Come here often?"

"When I'm not needed," Steve says. He nods to the group at the table in the middle. "Just getting to know them a little more before we head out." He bites his bottom lip and Howard finds that very distracting. "Are you...here about something I requested? I know we don't have much time so if it's too much work you don't have to-"

"Too much work?" Howard chuckles, shaking his head. "There's never too much work for me. I'm married to it, remember? Besides, I'm not here about that."

"Oh?"

"I'm just here to get some fresh air and have a drink," Howard says. He puts a reassuring hand on Steve's arm because the kid - _He's not that much younger than me. _- still looks anxious. "So, what're you having?"

"I-what? Oh, uh, water. Just water."

"You sure?"

Steve smiles tentatively and he's suddenly seeing the scrawny 90-pound recruit climbing onto the massive contraption in the underground Brooklyn lab. "I could but it's better that I don't. Besides-" He glances at his men again. "-I need to keep an eye on these guys-"

"Hey, Captain!" one of the men bellows. It's Dugan, with the bowler hat. "Where's the beer!"

"In a minute, fellas!"

Steve looks at Howard apologetically and he shrugs, says, "I can wait."

He'll never admit to enjoying seeing Steve continue to look confused as he nods, orders five pints of beer, and carefully carries the tray over to his men. The bartender gives Howard a pointed look and politely coughs, and he starts, dragging his eyes away from Steve to say, "He'll have water. I'll have a Between the Sheets."

"Excuse me?"

"Between the Sheets. It's one part brandy, one part rum, one part Cointreau..." Right. He's at a pub, not an upscale bar. "I'll have a beer."

Steve returns just as the bartender sets down a glass of lukewarm water and a pint of beer. "Sorry about that. Dugan said he'd join my team if I opened up a tab."

"Well that's one way to get someone on your side," Howard says, sliding the water towards him. "Here."

"Thanks."

The beer, though watery, is quite passable. He still drains the entire glass in one go just to get it out of the way. He rubs the booze out of his moustache and looks up to see Steve raising a questioning eyebrow. "Tried to order a Between the Sheets-" He tries not to laugh when Steve chokes on his water. "-but that didn't go well. Beer's not my drink of choice, but I'm not feeling up to walking across town to find a bar."

"Why not?"

Good question. There's a hotel not too far from here where people with money dare to gather to drink and forget that they're living in a version of Hell, but he walked in here instead. "Well for one I'd like to be close to my lab if and when the Nazis decide to drop some bombs on us again. Two, I just like the company here."

There's a red flush on Steve's face that isn't a trick of the smoky light because it wasn't there a second ago and isn't the beer because Steve's sober. Howard holds back the inevitable inquisitive frown and instead turns his head to ask the bartender for another beer. His heart's racing, though, and it's with that uncomfortable uncertainty he has around the few men who pique his interest.

Maybe if he'd been born in a time far into the future he wouldn't have to conceal his attraction to men. It irks him that he can't just flaunt it with the men and women who make him lose focus on his beloved work. But this is the time he has been born into, forcing him to redirect his charm and test the waters first because the one thing he can't do is get friendly with someone who might start talking. He's learned to read people, men and women alike, picking out those who either don't care or reciprocate. He can't get a read on Steve, though, and he's not sure why. Maybe because he's so earnest...and so hopeless, especially around women named Peggy Carter.

"So," he says while the bartender slides over a new pint. "What happened this morning to make Agent Carter use live rounds on you?"

The red flush only gets redder. Fascinatingly enough it travels down Steve's neck and underneath the collar of his uniform. Howard only looks up when Steve shifts uncomfortably and says, "I might have...well, see, I told her a few years ago that I'd never gone dancing before, let alone talk with a lady-a woman for more than a minute. Said I was..." He hems and haws, pressing his lips together and then rubbing them in embarrassment. "I was waiting for the right partner. To dance with, I mean.

"Then last night she came here and we talked about that. And about the equipment you wanted me to take a look at. I went in this morning and-" Now he's turning beet red, and he's fidgeting. "General Phillips' secretary...might've...kissed me."

Howard laughs. "And let me guess - she saw you and decided you already found your dance partner."

"It wasn't like that! It just...happened. And then, you know, I said that thing."

"What thing?"

Steve covers his face with his hand. "That thing about you and Peggy and fondue."

Howard laughs as he finishes off his second pint of beer. "You don't know much about it, do you?"

"How to talk to women?"

"That, too." He tries to wipe the taste of beer out of his mouth and then decides he should probably wash it down with another glass. "So, what do you know about wooing them?"

Steve looks at him carefully. "Not...much..."

"You must've learned a thing or two from your pal."

"Bucky? Well, he tried but nobody wanted to be around someone they could step on." Steve's shoulders slumps as he stares at his glass of water, and Howard mentally kicks himself. "Then I turn into this and suddenly everyone's interested in me. I just never had the time to look."

"Or learn." The bartender sets another beer in front of him. "Thanks."

When he looks up from the froth and the rim of the glass Steve's staring at him. "Something on my moustache?"

"No," Steve says a little too quickly. "How do I get on her good side again? I don't-I don't want her to get the wrong impression of me."

"Buddy, I think she has a very good impression of you," he says reassuringly. "From what she told me you jumped on a dummy grenade instead of away from it. You should've seen her face.

"But," he continues, "there's a difference between making a good first impression as a person and making a good first impression as a possible date. First, you need be confident. Not that you aren't, considering what you just did a couple weeks ago, but from what I hear you get flustered around women. It might work on some, might not work on others. Gotta get a read on them and act to their expectations."

"I thought she liked me just as I am," Steve says.

"True." Howard strokes his chin. "Well, what's done is done and nobody can change that. All you can do is show her that you care about her. And not the way gentlemen care. She's a field agent; she had to fight her way to get this far. So what you gotta do is respect her, impress her, but don't make any grand gestures. Don't make yourself too obvious."

"I thought you said women were unpredictable. How do you...?"

"Most women are, until you've been around them a couple months to a couple years," Howard says. "The jumping on the dummy grenade was good, but let's not repeat that."

"Let's not," Steve agrees readily.

"Maybe...we're thinking small, so maybe you carry around a small keepsake to remind you of her. Like a small photograph."

His eyes light up and Howard momentarily forgets to breathe. Then they dim and it's like all the joy has been sucked out of the pub. "I don't have one of her."

"I do," he hears himself say. "In my lab."

At the look on Steve's face he hastily adds, "We were not fonduing. I promise."

The pub is a little warm. It's possibly all the people crowded in such a small space. It's possibly the beer. It's possibly how his heart keeps thudding in his chest. He tugs at the collar of his shirt as he considers getting some air and then notices that Steve's staring at his throat. It's quick, eyes flicking down and then away but there's a second or two in between and it makes Howard wonder.

"So," he begins as nonchalantly as possible, "what do you know about kissing?"

Steve spills water all over the counter. He then knocks over the glass as he tries to both evade the spreading puddle and mop it up with his sleeve, and Howard catches it before it rolls off the bar. The bartender's on the scene a second later, brushing Steve off and soaking it up with a stained rag.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to, it was an accident," Steve says and Howard decides he quite likes this naturally flustered man.

The bartender just keeps waving him off as he wipes down the counter and leaves. Howard grins at Steve, who rubs the back of his neck and awkwardly clears his throat. Before he can say anything Dugan appears, along with the rest of Steve's team.

"Since you're busy here we thought we should inform you that we'll be heading back," Dugan says. "Evening, Mr. Stark."

"And you." He has a thought, gestures to all five soldiers, and adds, "Why don't you boys come by the lab at eleven, test out your new equipment?"

The Frenchman - Dernier, his mind supplies - says something to Jones, who laughs and says, "He said he'll make his own bombs, thanks."

"If you insist, but I'm sure you'll appreciate what I came up with to help you with that. Eleven o'clock, sharp. Just making sure everything's ready to go before the good general ships you out."

"Will do."

Howard focuses on what must be his fourth beer - his fifth? - while Steve talks with his team. Once they're gone he swings his attention back to Steve and very casually says, "So."

"You mean the, uh, kissing, right?"

"That's right." Howard leans on the counter and props his head up because it's feeling a little heavy right now. He pushes aside the beer even though he's only halfway done. "You ever kiss a woman?"

Is it just him or are Steve's lips really, really pink? He squints a bit, eyes trained on the plush bottom lip while Steve stares up at the ceiling. "Well, uh, I did. Twice. I was ten and it was on accident."

He quirks an eyebrow and Steve blushes again. "And then this morning. I wasn't trying to-she was insistent. And she kept, uh, kept...trying to put her tongue in my mouth."

Howard can't stop laughing.


	2. like something is about to begin

**Wishing Well**

**2: and you feel like something is about to begin**

_"Why don't we take this to my lab?"_

_"Are you sure?"_

_"I have something to give you, remember? Besides, someone has to teach you the finer points of kissing. Women love a man who knows how to kiss. And you, my easily embarrassed friend, have potential."_

He contemplates pulling out his secret stash of Scotch to finish what the beer started while watching Steve look at all the half-finished equipment laid out on the table. He can either get drunk and work through the inevitable hangover tomorrow morning or he can sober up and reconsider the offer he made earlier tonight.

_Teach him how to kiss,_ he muses while Steve looks at several modified firearms on one of the work tables. _How do I do that?_

The way Steve strokes along the curve of the half-painted shield with such care as him shifting uncomfortably against his desk. He swallows hard and wonders if Scotch will be any good for a dry throat. Probably not. He considers saying something - "What do you think about the paint job?" "You sure you don't want to take a second look at the other shields?" - but his mouth won't work. It's when Steve wanders to the other side of the lab that he realizes that they're both avoiding each other. It's about as bad as whatever was going on between Steve and Peggy earlier this morning.

Fantastic.

Howard finally decides that maybe he should break out the Scotch and pushes off the desk. It squeaks and Steve starts, turns around to him. Howard forgets the Scotch and he's still tipsy enough to keep staring at the super soldier who continues to epitomize the word "flustered".

This shouldn't be so awkward. _He _shouldn't be so awkward. He's Howard Stark.

"Come on," he says, gesturing. Steve straightens his uniform and walks over quickly like a soldier should. Howard looks up at him, contemplating how to go about it without staring at the perfect bow of his lips. "First of all, don't wander away and lose any chance at this. Now say someone's interested and interesting enough for you to kiss. What do you do?"

"Um..." Steve's turning red again. "Grab her and kiss her? Well, you, uh, you..."

Showing, Howard decides impulsively, is a better idea than describing. Much better. He grabs Steve's left hand and pulls it and him forward, presses it on his waist. The heat and weight of it quite literally takes his breath away.

"Mr. S-Stark?" Steve stammers. "What are you-"

"Howard, remember? And I'm _showing _you how it's done. Relax, you won't hurt me." The temperature's gone up but he doesn't ever think of opening the door to let some air in. "You put your hand on her waist like this, and the other hand like so..."

He keeps his eyes on Steve's as he takes the other hand and slowly places it against the side of his neck. His palm is calloused in places, reminds Howard of his own hands. The fingers curve against the slope of his neck automatically, thumb resting against the curve of his jaw. It's getting harder to breathe.

"I've...never seen Bucky do this," Steve confesses. His eyes are stormy, his face flushed.

"He's good, if a little coarse," Howard says and his voice is thick with tension, with the questions in his head. He's taken risks - it's part of his job - but this is beyond risky. He could lose so much if he keeps going... "Don't think Peggy would want that, though."

"R-right. Then what?"

"Then you...pull her forward..." Steve does exactly that, drawing him close slowly and with care. Their hips press, then their chests, and all Howard can feel is heat and the steadfast strength of the person who'd become a symbol of his country and the Allied forces. Except his face is anything but steadfast; he looks so nervous for reasons, Howard finally decides, that have nothing to do with being in an intimate position with another man rather than with a woman.

"Okay, Howard," Steve whispers shakily. "And then?"

"Well...knowing Peggy she'll-" Steve starts when Howard lets go of his wrist to place his hand on his chest and slide up to the broad shoulder. "She'll probably...do this."

He then moves his hand to the side of Steve's neck and then to the back of his head, feeling muscles move as Steve swallows nervously. Howard pushes up an inch or two on the balls of his feet to compensate for the height difference, bringing him up closer to Steve's mouth. In fact he can feel tiny puffs of air against his lips and he realizes just then how close they are, especially with Steve unconsciously tilting his chin up with the hand against his neck.

"And then?" Steve asks softly. His large, warm hand slides over Howard's hip to the small of his back, keeping him steady.

"You kiss her," Howard says like it's the most obvious thing in the world. "Not that you have to, but-"

Steve kisses him.

It's a closemouthed press and Howard's had _much _better but his eyes are already closing as he relaxes in Steve's arms. All too soon the pressure disappears from his lips and the heat moves away; he opens his eyes and frowns at Steve, who's looking more than a little stunned.

"I-I'm sorry," he stammers. "I didn't mean to-I, uh, oh gosh I'm not even drunk-"

"Why'd you stop?" Howard asks and his jaw snaps shut. "You don't stop."

"But I...you're okay?"

"Perfectly okay." He looks at those plush pink lips and moves his hand, slides it forward and forms it to the curve of Steve's face. He brushes the pad of his thumb over that bottom lip, tracing its soft swell, and Steve shivers, breath hitching. "Let's do it again."

"Do what?"

"Kissing. Gotta show you how it's done."

Funny enough Steve doesn't say another word. He just leans in and kisses him again. Again it's tight-lipped and a little less confident than the impulsive press a second ago. _Should work on that_, Howard thinks as he opens his mouth just enough to suck on that bottom lip. Steve starts, hand pressing hard into his back, and Howard caresses the wonderful curve of his jaw line with his thumb, calming him.

"Relax," Howard murmurs. "Keep jumping like that and you won't get far."

He nods, though he stiffens and inhales sharply when Howard flicks his tongue out and strokes it along his wonderful bottom lip. His lips part as if of their own accord and Howard takes the opportunity to find out what he tastes like. He rises up a half-inch more and tilts his head to get a better angle, puts his free hand on Steve's chest to keep himself steady as he licks inside that mouth.

Steve tastes like rainwater. Interesting. Howard dimly remembers that he only had water at the pub, which might explain the sweet clean flavor. There's a muffled noise, something that's both a surprised squeak and a moan, and then Steve is pulling him closer, fingers curling against his back. His mouth is slick and hot, and Howard maps it with his tongue, stroking and sliding and tracing its shape the way he kept tracing Steve's outline with his pencils. It's an incredibly heady sensation, better than all the kisses he shared with all the others who crossed his path over the years.

Too soon he has to breathe and slowly pulls back. Steve's eyes flutter open and he looks...well...breathless and breathtaking, face flushed and lips kiss-swollen and not a strand of hair out of place. But behind the enhanced perfection there's the earnest, honest soldier and man who tries so hard to do the right thing, even if it means learning how to kiss from another man.

The thought is incredibly depressing and his perspective shifts; suddenly this isn't funny, risky, and risqué anymore. He tries to step back and put a little distance between them because the heat and the bar's smoky scent still clinging to their clothes is making him a little dizzy. He can't, though, because of the hand at his back and because of the hurt look crossing Steve's face.

"What is it? What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Howard lies. "Just figured that, well, now that you know how to kiss we don't have to continue."

He forces himself to take a step back but Steve follows. Another step and he hits his desk hard, knocking something over. He doesn't take his eyes off Steve, though, nor does Steve look away. There's a look on his face echoing the one when he and Peggy approached Howard about flying behind enemy lines to rescue their lost soldiers except it's focused on_ him_.

"Do you want to stop?" Steve's mirroring him, tracing his lips with his thumb, tickling his moustache. "Because I really don't want to."

"Well, when you put it that way-"

Steve tilts his head up and kisses him fiercely, tongue slick and sweet as it slides against his mouth. Howard lets him in, relishes the newfound confidence as Steve sets out to memorize every inch of his mouth. They bump into the desk again as they try to compensate for the height difference; neither of them are willing to let go for the few seconds it takes to readjust themselves and so Howard sidles up onto his desk, drags Steve closer until the soldier is standing between his legs.

An eternity later they come up for air and Howard hoarsely says, "You know, there's other places you can put that mouth on."

"Yeah?" Steve's hair is all over the place and Howard makes a mental note to offer him a comb to brush it over before they leave the lab.

"You really don't know?"

Before Steve can say something about it Howard leans up and grazes that taut line of his neck with teeth, latches onto a spot on his neck and sucks hard. Steve shudders against him, raking fingers through hair at the back of his head. Howard brushes his lips over the fast-fading mark on his neck - _Thank God and Erskine for that serum_, he thinks - and skims down to the Adam's apple to lick off the salt. A few centimeters down is the stiff collar of Steve's uniform, hiding the hollow at the base of his throat, and Howard's fingers twitch, wanting to start unbuttoning things to find it.

He gets as far as resting both his hands on Steve's shoulders, as far as sliding them down to the brass buttons, and then freezes as something slides off a work table and falls to the floor with a muffled clang. As one they turn to look at the shield, which is lying facedown. Steve laughs nervously and steps back, rubbing the back of his neck and making worse his already tousled hair.

"Must've-I, um, didn't put it back right...I'll go put it away right now."

Howard smiles as he watches Steve stumble while trying to avoid a table laden with firearms, then slides off his desk and straightens his shirt. The moment is passing, slipping away with every step Steve takes to pick up the shield, and so Howard sighs, pats down his hair, and walks behind his desk to start searching through his belongings. He resurfaces with a broken comb, a canteen of stale water, and a small stack of photographs when Steve awkwardly clears his throat.

"So, uh..."

"Here." Howard hands him the comb and canteen. "Should do something about your hair."

"Oh! Right. I'll just...go over there..." He walks to the only drain in the lab and pours water over the comb, starts taming his hair. Howard shakes his head as he flips through the glossy photos, looking for a certain face.

"Here," he says when Steve returns, hair damp but not a strand out of place. He holds out a photograph of just Peggy, smiling and gorgeous and with eyes full of fire. "Best one I got."

Steve takes it gingerly, holds it up and traces her smile with his finger. "Thanks." He looks over it at Howard. "For everything."

"It's nothing," he says, waves it off, and starts gathering his things to shove them back into the suitcase sitting next to his feet.

He stills at the hand on his shoulder and lets Steve slowly turn him around. He didn't even notice him walking around the table to his side.

"I mean it," Steve says carefully, putting his full weight behind each syllable. He lifts his free hand and curves it around the side of Howard's face, tilts him up to press a soft kiss and holds it for a long time. His lips feel fuzzy when they pull back and he doesn't think he can breathe.

"See you tomorrow, then," Howard says very quietly. "Eleven o'clock, sharp. Don't be late; wouldn't want to miss any of the demonstrations."

"I won't," Steve says. "Good night, Mr. Stark."

He lets Howard go, tucks the photograph into one of his many pockets, and turns to leave. Halfway across the lab to the door he stops and looks at the shield, gleaming under the yellowed light. Howard hears him take a deep breath and open the door.

It closes with a ringing sound that echoes in the expansive but cluttered space. His knees finally give out and Howard sits down on his chair. He stares at the pile of sketches on the desk, at the three slugs piled in a corner next to the pencils, and then at the suitcase at his feet. He leans down to pull out a smaller canteen of Scotch, and twists the cap open.

* * *

><p>They never spoke of that night. What was there to say? They got to talking at the Whip and Fiddle Pub, and finished the conversation at Howard's lab while looking over the specialized equipment he's been working on for Steve's team. The next day Steve and his team - "The Howling Commandos," Morita declared and Falsworth rolled his eyes. - looked on while Howard and his assistants walked each of the members through their new gear; Howard had a few minutes to slip Steve a few more suggestions with regard to Peggy before General Phillips sent word that they were shipping out in a few days to start hunting down HYDRA bases.<p>

Howard rarely saw Steve after that, busy as he was building better weapons and studying the mysterious element while being slowly drawn into discussions about an Operation Neptune. SSR agents kept him informed of Steve and the Howling Commandos' progress, however, especially Peggy; many a night she came down to his lab with an offering of brandy and they stayed up for hours talking about her missions, his progress, and reports from the front line. She was the one who invited him to watch a few of the reels sent in from the war front, so he was there when the camera panned over to Steve, who opened his compass while studying a map with the Commandos; he smirked at the perfect shot of the cutout of Peggy's face glued to the inside of the compass's cover and Steve's mortification as he quickly snapped it shut.

There are three bases left and they know the location to only two of them. The Howling Commandos are back in London to catch a breather and exchange their gear for upgrades. Howard is supervising an assistant with dissecting a HYDRA motorcycle when Steve and Barnes walk in. They know which station holds which person's equipment but after a few words only Barnes goes to his table while Steve walks over to Howard.

"Something wrong, my friend?" Howard asks casually while the assistant - William, the Oxford kid - scampers off.

"Uh, no, actually." Steve stares down at his recently polished boots for a moment, then takes a deep breath and holds out a folded piece of paper. "I just wanted to give this to you."

Confused he takes it and starts to unfold it but Steve quickly adds, "In private."

Howard doesn't question it. With a nod he tucks it into his pocket and turns back to the partially dismantled motorcycle. He's finally starting to see the bigger picture - and thank god Schmidt never shared his secrets with Hitler or they'd be screwed - but with Steve here his focus is already starting to wander. "So, did you see Peggy? I know she's on base for a spell, same as you."

Steve laughs nervously. "Well, no, not exactly. Ran into her on the way here, actually, but she was doing something for MI6 so we didn't get to talk. Uh, she didn't see that footage, right? The one where I was using my compass?"

"She reviews all the footage with General Phillips and a couple other agents. Why? You didn't plan it out, did you?"

"No!" Steve yelps and half the lab raises their heads. "I mean _I _didn't but the boys-" He glances sideways at Barnes, who's busy reassembling his new sniper rifle. "-they wouldn't leave it alone. Was I...was I being too obvious?"

Howard recalls the rosy blush on Peggy's face after the lights turned back on, the embarrassment when General Phillips' secretary, Private Lorraine, asked her about it and Steve. She looked quite happy, actually, and Howard tells him so.

"Oh, okay," he says, a smile slowly spreading on his face. It's like the sun, brighter than anything Howard's ever seen. He wonders if he'll ever see anything else as brilliant and then thinks, _No, never will._

"Hey, Steve!" Barnes calls out. He's on the steps leading to the door. "You coming or what?"

"I'll be there in a minute," Steve says.

"All right. See you at the mess hall."

The motorcycle, Howard decides as he forcibly turns his attention back to it, can finish being dismantled on a table now. He glances at the pile of sketches and notes on his desk remarking on its many improvements over an older model that was caught a few weeks ago. HYDRA is quick, which is both frustrating and an engrossing challenge. He can't put a finger to their secret, because nothing comes to mind that can explain HYDRA's ability to build and put out such mechanical marvels without error.

"Hey, you mind helping me take this down?" he asks.

Steve obliges all too willingly, not even bothering to take off his jacket.

Howard starts wondering when Steve, instead of leaving after setting the vehicle on a work table, follows him to his desk, where he stands with hands shoved into his pockets and rocks back and forth on his feet. Howard pretends to be completely focused on a few annotations he has to change but the pencil doesn't touch the paper. Instead he tucks it behind his ear and leans on the table, looks up at the super soldier and asks, "Is it Peggy?"

"Ah, um, uh, sort of. Yes."

"Anything in particular you wanna ask?"

"Well..." Watching America's golden boy fidget and blush will never stop being amusing. "What else do I do? We're going to be here for two weeks before shipping out again and if she's going to be here for a few weeks, too..."

"What I'd do," Howard says, pushing aside one sketch to look at another underneath. He frowns at the small doodle in a corner of the page and discretely hides it with the palm of his hand. "I'd take her out to dinner. Dress up, look smart, give her a good time. Preferably somewhere where people can see you. You have been writing those letters, right?"

"Of course. Just like you said."

"Then there's nothing to worry about," Howard says, clapping a hand on his shoulder. "Find her when she's alone and ask."

Steve goes completely still under his hand and Howard suddenly realizes that this is the first time he's touched him since that night. Several loud heartbeats later Howard finally slides his hand off and shoves it into his pocket, clears his throat and shrugs. "That's all I have."

"Yeah," Steve says in a hoarse, distant voice. "Thanks, Howard."

"No problem."

He watches Steve leave, fingers pressed together in his pocket, trying to memorize the living heat underneath them. After a moment he fishes out the piece of paper Steve handed him earlier and, with a sweeping glance around him to make sure nobody needs him at the moment, unfolds it.

"Huh," he says under his breath, wondering when Steve found the time to sketch him holding up the vibranium shield as if to study it.

Steve returns later in the evening when nobody else is in the lab. There's a rebellious strand of hair curving diagonally across his forehead, otherwise his uniform is impeccably clean and pressed. In fact, Howard guesses as he walks over from where he'd been tinkering with Dugan's shotgun, he looks like he'd been getting ready for a date.

"Had to cancel at the last minute," Steve starts nonchalantly, because he's convinced he can hide the hurt in his words. "We were about to leave but Private Lorraine stopped us and said General Phillips needed her-"

Howard backs him into the door. Or rather, Steve lets Howard back him into the door with just an index finger on his chest. The door groans with the sudden stress of Steve's weight but holds; Howard waits a second and then rises up on the balls of his feet to brush his mouth against Steve's.

"Always a next time," he says against the parted, perfect lips. "Ask her tomorrow."

Large hands, strong enough to bend metal, cup his face carefully as Steve says, "I did. Show me how to kiss again?"

Howard smiles. "Anything for you, my friend."


	3. through the dark blue waters

**Wishing Well**

**3: through the dark blue waters where you cast your spell**

They get the news from Morita's next missive. Arnim Zola is in their custody but Sergeant James Barnes is dead. Officially he's MIA but it's impossible to hope that anyone can survive falling off a train racing through the mountains.

"Barnes was his best friend," Peggy murmurs while Howard pours her brandy into their glasses. "I can't imagine what he's going through right now."

He says nothing, just stares at the table where Barnes' new sniper rifle is waiting as he swallows down the liquor. It trails smooth fire down his throat, a welcome sensation to the numbness in his body and mind.

"He's going to pretend he's okay when he's not," Peggy continues, setting her now empty glass on the desk. "I'll talk to him."

It takes a long second for him to realize that she's waiting for him to say something. "Yeah, you probably should."

He starts when she covers his hand with hers; her touch is gentle but firm and it fills him with a warmth different from the brandy. He looks up at her and wonders when she became an anchor in his life.

"One base left," she says as she slides off the table onto her feet. She steadies herself, then straightens her uniform, pressing out wrinkles. "And then our part of the war is over."

_The HYDRA part at least, _he thinks. The letter with regard to Alsos sits under a stack of notes and designs on the left side of his desk and it includes a handwritten message from Major General Groves suggesting he come stateside to the Manhattan Engineer District. Ever so slowly members of the SSR are being pulled in different directions but no matter how tempting it is to help make real the currently theoretical fission bomb, no matter how many letters Operation Alsos sends him he just can't leave Steve and Peggy here.

"Going back to MI6 after?"

"Most likely, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. We still have to find Schmidt." She points at the bottle of brandy. "Keep it. You'll need it."

After she leaves he pours himself another glass and starts looking through the piles of paper he accumulated over the months. He pulls out old sketches of Steve's uniform, sits down in his chair and props his feet up on the table, and wonders if there's anything he can modify, anything he can add, anything he can _do _to ensure Steve doesn't meet the same fate as his best friend.

_Who am I kidding? This is war._

Two days later the Howling Commandos reach the relative safety of Great Britain. This time there's no fanfare, no shouts of joy, no smiles on the faces of his lab. They've lost one of the best snipers in the army, the good captain's friend and equal, the man who regularly stole Howard's assistants for a raucous night at the Whip and Fiddle.

_That's gone, too, _Howard thinks as he runs his hand along the barrel of the lonely sniper rifle. None of the Commandos have come by yet, not that anyone can blame them. He hasn't so much as caught a glimpse of Steve, though, and it makes him a little anxious.

Howard isn't a soldier; almost everyone he's interacted with have been those working behind the lines supplying the boys up front. Steve's handpicked unit is the first he's worked closely with and nobody told him what to expect or what to do if one of them didn't come back. He'd even told himself time and again that this is war and nothings certain but the news was still a punch in the gut. It just didn't seem real. He kept catching himself expecting Barnes to come into the lab at any minute - and do it loudly - to see what Howard has in store for him, congratulate everyone involved, and then invite them all for a round. Knowing it'll never happen again is chilling. Having the Commandos and Steve be all but MIA themselves is just... he shakes his head, rakes stained fingers through his mussed hair, and abruptly turns on his heels to walk back to his desk and grab his coat.

He glances at the rifle one more time before flicking off the lights and leaving the lab to grab a bite at another pub that's suddenly overflowing with soldiers looking for a reason to forget.

Howard goes back to his lab later in the night because he can't sleep and he left Peggy's brandy on his desk. He stops in his tracks when he notices the light seeping out under the door. Did somebody else leave something behind, too, or was one of the Commandos in there? Is it Steve?

He won't know until he opens the damn door, so he twists the doorknob and pushes it opens.

Steve sets Barnes' rifle back on the work table. He's in uniform - _Always is, _Howard's mind supplies - and the brass buttons shine a little too brightly under the lights. His eyes are red and there's a sense of fragility as he turns his full attention to Howard but his shoulders are set and his gaze is sharp and focused.

Peggy found him, Howard determines as Steve drops his crumpled hat and crosses the concrete floor to him in five long strides. He backs into the door as Steve looms over him, brackets his face with steady hands, and whispers his name before kissing him. Steve tastes like whiskey but his mouth burns hotter as he presses his tongue in; he knows what he's doing, isn't at all drunk despite the stink of alcohol wrapped around him in a thick layer and Howard numbly thinks, _Erskine was right._

It's quite possible Howard can get downright tipsy off this alcohol-saturated kiss, can easily guess that Steve tried to drink himself into a stupor somewhere - the trace scent of burning wood tells him he visited the pub - before coming here. Underneath the overpowering taste of Scotch is bittersweet desperation, the ongoing process of accepting the kind of loss no one should ever have to live through. Howard wonders what he should say - what did Peggy say to him? - and then realizes as Steve pushes him against the door and strokes the inside of his mouth almost bruisingly that he has nothing to say at all, not with the way he's clinging to the front of the army green jacket like a lifeline.

_You're here now. You're safe._

But for how long? The uncertainty hangs in the thick air around them and it's what makes Howard finally respond. He slides his tongue against Steve's, caresses it and coaxes out a soft moan while his fingers brush against brass and starts unbuttoning the jacket. He slides his hands under the jacket, feels hard muscles twitch through stiff fabric as Steve gasps into his mouth. The tie brushes against the back of his hand and Howard grabs it, wraps it around his fingers and draws Steve closer until there's no space between them. With his other hand he loosens the knot and lets the tan fabric slip off Steve's neck and through his fingers onto the floor.

Steve pulls back then, says, "Howard?" hesitantly, and he freezes.

What is he doing? He shouldn't be doing this, not with Steve, not while Barnes' death is still so fresh on everyone's mind, not with Peggy still out there and as in love with Steve as Steve is in love with her. He drops his gaze to his grip on Steve's shirt, the top button holding the stiff collar together tempting and right _there _yet so far away, and slowly lets go. He'd back away now, turn sharply on his heels and walk to his room to drink his Scotch until he can't remember a damn thing, but the door's at his back and Steve's at his front. He's got nowhere to go.

"I shouldn't," he says quietly, dropping his hands to his sides as he stares at a stain on the floor. "I'm sorry. Got carried away-"

Fingertips under his chin, tilting his head up to look at Steve. There's a sad smile on his lips as he leans in and says, "You can kiss me."

"And that's it. Nothing more-" His breath hitches as Steve places his other hand at the small of his back and pulls him forward. "-and nothing less."

Steve nods and then his blue eyes flutter shut as Howard traces the swell of that plush bottom lip with his thumb, and closes the inches between them with a kiss.

* * *

><p>"A portable gramophone, huh?"<p>

Howard slowly turns around as Peggy shuts the door behind her and leans on it. The smile on her lips is a mask, a front; she looks so tired, so weary, so drained of life. The war's not even over and she's as ready to lay down her arms as he is.

He folds his arms and sits on the edge of his desk, glances at the contraption sitting on one of the empty work tables. The lively strains of jazz are a jarring contrast to the suffocating weight in his chest but it's the only way he can keep afloat.

He nods. "Usually brought it out after the boys left for the night. Reminds me of the jazz bars I used to visit before the war."

She sighs and closes her eyes, tilts her head towards the music while her fingers tap out the beat on the door. He notices she doesn't have a bottle of brandy in hand.

After a few seconds she opens her eyes and looks at him. "So, New Mexico?"

"I can't say."

"Top secret, then?"

The message was sent to General Groves the night they came back to London from the last mission, declaring Howard's intention to go stateside immediately to have a hand in developing what could possibly be the most powerful weapon in existence. Well, the second most powerful weapon in existence but the secrets of the SSR will remain under lock and key, buried under oaths of secrecy and purposefully lost to bureaucracy. He will go to Los Alamos as the daring and innovative inventor and weapons contractor, the youngest and the best America has to offer. With Oppenheimer, Fermi, and others he'll build the fission bomb to end this damn war once and for all.

"What about you?" he asks.

"I'm staying here. You've heard of Operation Neptune, haven't you?"

The corner of his mouth quirks up as he says, "You're not supposed to talk about it, remember? I'm not cleared for that."

"Well I think you should know what the Commandos are doing in a few months. They're your boys, same as mine, same as..." Her voice hitches, wavers as she says, "Well, you know what I mean. War's about the turn around, I can feel it."

He wishes he can feel it, too. He looks over his shoulder, hoping he didn't pack his half-empty bottle of Scotch yet; he sees instead the three bent slugs and a folded piece of paper. His heart starts beating loudly in his head as he leans over and plucks it up with trembling fingers, unfolds it carefully to stare at his portrait. His eyes trace the graphite lines and the signature at the bottom right hand corner, and suddenly he misses Steve terribly. Is this how it feels, knowing one's beloved will never come back home from the war?

"This is beautiful," Peggy whispers from his right. He never noticed her walking to his side and here she is, sitting on the table and leaning against him, warming him with her presence. She lays her head on his shoulder, reaches up and follows the curve of the vibranium shield with her thumb. "I was wondering what he was drawing. He wouldn't show me. Insisted it was private."

"I was wearing that the day you tried to shoot him," he says. "Three times. In my lab, full of people."

"You said the shield absorbed vibrations. Bullets would've stopped in midair, not ricochet."

"He wasn't prepared-"

"In war, you're never prepared. No matter how ready you think you are," she says softly, and he can't tell if she's talking to him or reminding herself. "Besides, I trusted him to have fast enough reflexes to protect himself."

He nods out of courtesy and then says, "Talked with General Phillips earlier. There's an energy signature in the north Atlantic, around where Steve...disappeared. Told him I was coming back after Manhattan to go follow it." He turns his head slightly to look at Peggy. "Come with me?"

"Do you really have to ask?"

There's a shared smile and a huff of laughter, then Peggy bows her head and pulls something out of the inner pocket of her jacket. It's a small leather-bound notebook and she slides off the elastic band holding the pages together, opens it and holds it up to show him what's on the inside of the cover.

"This was the other thing he wouldn't show me. Found it in my suitcase last night. He must've put it in there while I wasn't looking."

Howard wonders where Steve found the time, or the inks and pen necessary to make permanent the beautiful drawing of Peggy sitting in a chair in front of a tent, lost in thought while a faraway smile graces her face. He can't recognize the setting but there's a scrawl on the bottom that reads "At Boot Camp".

"I know Dr. Erskine said one of the possible effects of the serum was enhanced memory," she says, "but I didn't think he'd remember all the details. This was back at boot camp, when we were trying to decide who would be the first to undergo the treatment. I think Erskine knew all along who he wanted to be his first candidate, though.

"Naturally General Phillips doubted him and so did I. But one day he took me aside, pointed at Steve, and said he had a good heart, that all he needed was a chance and the serum would take care of the rest. And he was right. Even before the grenade incident you could see it. The others would push him around, call him names, do everything but physically hurt him, but he never fought back. He just held his head high and kept going.

"I asked him once how he felt about going overseas to fight the Nazis. Never forgot the look on his face, the way he leaned forward and told me he didn't want to fight. I asked why he kept trying to enlist and-" She stops suddenly and Howard notices wet spots on the pages. Peggy takes a deep, shaky breath, and then continues. "He said he couldn't just watch from the sidelines while we fought and died for something that was _right_. And I finally understood why Erskine had so much faith in him."

She sniffs and Howard automatically reaches for the kerchief tucked into the pocket of his vest, pulls it out and gives it to her.

"Thanks," she says, dabbing her eyes.

When she tries to give it back he shakes his head, says, "Keep it. I don't need it."

"Don't lie," she says. Still she pushes it into her pocket with one hand, then tries to wipe away the tear drops on the pages. By then they've already soaked into the paper but the ink is apparently waterproof and won't run. She stares at the drawing for a moment longer, then closes the notebook and tucks it away.

They sit quietly for a while, listening to the ebb and flow of the music.

"You know," Peggy says with a nod to the gramophone, "Steve promised to take me out for a dance a week ago. He's late."

"I'm sure he didn't mean to miss a date with you," Howard says. "He's a busy man, saving the world."

"I suppose," she says with an exaggerated sigh.

He knows what she's getting at so he places Steve's drawing on the desk and pushes off it onto his feet. He turns around and holds a hand out to Peggy, says, "I suppose I'll have to ask for a dance in his place, then. I'm sure he won't mind. Can't leave a lovely lady like you waiting for too long, can I?"

He throws in a wink for good measure and there's finally a real smile on her face, a light behind her eyes as she says, "Why thank you, Mr. Stark."

The music selection could be much better, he thinks as they sway together in the middle of the empty lab, or it could be at a jazz club before the war and he's asking if she can swing, but right here, right now it's enough to have this record filling in the silence between them. He recalls all his attempts to get Peggy into his arms in the early years of their collaboration but now he takes comfort in just having her here with him, dancing to the wrong kind of music and mourning the loss of a good man they both love.

At some point she lays her head on his shoulder but he doesn't notice until she says, "I know you taught him how to woo me."

He glances down at her, startled. If there's one thing a man's never to reveal it's his secrets and he'd forgotten to tell Steve that. She's smiling, though, not meaning to embarrass him and so he relaxes. "He was that obvious?"

"It was rather charming."

If there's one thing he made sure to never to tell Steve it's to pretend to be someone he's not just to get into her good graces. Maybe it's because Howard found his shy awkwardness just as endearing, just as entrancing; it tugged at something in his heart and led him down a twisting road to the waters, where Steve crossed into the unknown and left him behind.

"He was never that good at hiding things," Howard says instead, because after all this time he's still not sure what will happen if Peggy knows how he feels about their lone super soldier.

"Only when he didn't have reasons to hide."

His heart skips a beat and he almost treads on her toes. A numbness starts working through his body, the fear of discovery that's always tempered his flamboyance taking hold, but all he sees when he dares to look is a knowing smile.

_You know._

How, he wants to ask but he can't bring himself to open his mouth, can't make himself talk. Instead he focuses on a spot over her shoulder, looks at a blast mark in a corner of the lab as they continue to dance. His face is hot and now his heart's beating too fast but they keep moving like she didn't just say that.

Then Peggy lifts her head and leans up to softly say, "He loved you, you know."

Something in his chest twists painfully. They're damning words that can never be uttered in the open air, can bring his livelihood down on his head and ruin him utterly. And he's not even sure if he'd care if he became America's shame, because the emptiness aches deep inside and he doesn't think it'll ever go away.

Nonchalantly, with his eyes now glued to a broken clock on the wall, he says, "Yeah, just like how he loved everyone on this side of the battlefield. He's Captain America, it's what he is."

They're not dancing now, not even really swaying to music that's not quite compatible how they're feeling right now. A warm hand touches the side of his face and he closes his eyes as Peggy says, "You know what's not what I mean. He had a big heart, Howard."

Her hand slides down to the left side of his chest and he can feel his heartbeat vibrate through his body.

"Big enough for two," she whispers now, a secret between them. "I never said a word and I won't start saying things now. I promise."

Howard opens his eyes then and looks at her, not sure what to say. But there it is, the love and longing and loss that he felt ever since Peggy told him what happened at the secret base in the Alps. They've felt the same for so long but he'd been so careful with his words and his ways, unwilling to jeopardize Steve's chances or stir up the wrong kind of trouble. Did Steve say something? Did she suspect all along?

What strikes him is that regardless of when and how she found out she never said a word, kept the secret so well that Howard never suspected that she knew about him and Steve.

"Thank you," he finally says. "Thank you for that."

The record is coming to the end of the last song, the scritch-scratch overwhelming the last strains of the piano. They continue to sway together, pressed close and taking comfort in each other's presence long after the music ends. Finally, though, Peggy takes a deep breath and stops, and so does he.

"I should go," she says reluctantly. "Shouldn't delay you any longer since you're leaving first thing in the morning."

"And where will you be?"

"With MI6. We have an invasion to orchestrate. I'm certain you'll hear about it in the news soon. Just look for a full moon."

"Well I'll check the headlines every morning and write to you about it later."

"As you should."

He lets her go, then, and tries to step back but she follows him, slides her hand around the back of her neck and pulls him down for a kiss. Her mouth is warm, tongue questing and caressing; she tastes a bit like brandy and a bit like maraschino cherries. He feels himself unwind as he wraps his arms around her and loses himself for a long breathless moment.

They pull back slowly, lips brushing hotly, lingering because after tomorrow the Atlantic will stand between them and they don't know what'll happen between now and the end of the war.

"I wasn't the only one he kissed goodbye," Peggy murmurs, mouth moving against his. "Come back after this is all over. We'll go find him together."

One more kiss, a soft press, and then she's sliding out of his arms, walking to the door without another word. The door clicks shut and he's alone in the middle of the lab, fingers to his mouth and feeling the fuzzy impression of her lips.

Howard sighs and walks to his desk to finish gathering his things. He carefully tucks the drawing away in a notebook stuffed full of his sketches of Steve, but when he reaches for the three slugs he notices that one is missing. He doesn't look for it though; he knows where it is and where it's headed, knows it'll be kept as a strange memento of that morning in this lab months and months ago. He pockets the two misshapen lumps of metal, pulls on his jacket and picks up his suitcase, and walks out of the lab without ever looking back.


	4. and I gather the ashes

**Wishing Well**

**4: and I gather the ashes in that hole in the ground where we fell**

"...and stop. Time for a break. Think I've been sitting on my ass long enough, don't you? Can't even feel it. Do I have an ass, JARVIS?"

_I believe you do, sir._

Tony slides out of the car and stretches while the lights turn on. He grimaces, squints at the light until his eyes adjust, and then rubs the back of his head as he saunters over to his desk. He waves aside Dummy and picks up a mug of lukewarm black coffee, extra strong; sipping, and cringing, he perches on the desk and glances down at the open suitcase.

There's still a stack of notebooks and blueprints for him to go through, but he's not really feeling it right now. His mind is fuzzy and overrun from the reels and tapes he'd been watching for the last three hours and...thirty-nine minutes. He's surprised his father thought them important enough to save, since most of them seemed to deal exclusively with the company's inner workings. What exactly does Fury want him to find? Couldn't he have given some kind of a hint to speed up the process? It's not like the antidote is permanent.

There are a handful of tapes that pique his interest, however. Three of them are of Howard and a couple unfamiliar men in his office, talking about some kind of serum and the kind of technology the 50s has to offer - or rather the lack of technology the 50s has to offer.

There's one tape that won't leave his mind, though. It's only six minutes and ten seconds long; someone obviously cut it to hide something but he can't tell what. The one certain thing he came away with from the six minutes and ten was that his father was on very familiar terms with the British woman whose very classy heels is the only visible part of her.

_"Is there a reason why you're recording this?"_

_"Just in case I need to remind myself. I don't want to forget."_

_"Because we've done such a good job making the rest of the world forget?"_

_"It's just...it's an empty casket, Peggy. I can't just leave it like that."_

_"We've been looking and looking for ten years. I-I think it's gone on long enough. We can't waste our lives like this, not with all of our other obligations. Maybe it's time to move on."_

_"I don't know if I can."_

_"He'd have wanted it. You know that."_

"Who is she?" Tony mutters into the rim of his mug. Who's Peggy?

He spots a bit of color sticking out under the haphazard stack he dropped on top of another stack in the suitcase and tries to tug it out without upsetting the balance. Unsurprisingly the whole thing tips over. Papers fly everywhere and something made of metal shoots across the floor. Dummy eagerly reaches down to pluck the suitcase out of the mess and he bats its claw away.

"Stand down, Dummy, or I'm shipping you to the dumpster at the bottom of the driveway."

Once he's done reshuffling the notes and blueprints he goes looking for the bit of metal that rocketed off to some distant corner of his garage. Eventually he finds it resting against the tire of one of his Audis; it's a bent piece of metal, an odd thing to find in the suitcase. On the way back he steps on something and discovers another one just like it.

"Looks like slugs," he says as he tosses them into the suitcase. "Weird."

He starts looking for that bit of color. Immediately Dummy swings its arm to him, the color in its claw. Tony gives it a look as he takes it and then glances down at the front page.

Time slows down as stares at the bold yellow letters spelling out "CAPTAIN AMERICA". Distracting as the front cover is - it's a muscular man wearing a ridiculous costume tailored from pieces of the Star Spangled Banner _punching Hitler _- his eyes flick to the top right hand corner; it's bent in exactly the way he recalls folding over the corner and then he realizes that this is the exact same comic he found in his father's office when he was six.

_"Don't go through my things without my permission again, understand? Now get out!"_

At the time he thought he'd committed a terrible sin for going through other people's personal belongings without permission but of course he was only six, he didn't know better. Now, almost forty years later, Tony wonders why his father almost hit him over him finding this vintage comic. It was published when his father was a younger man and it's eerie how pristine this copy is because he can't imagine Howard Stark as an avid collector of old comics, but it's still just a comic. And what's it doing in here anyway? What connection does it have to the meticulous notes on the properties of unexplained chemical reactions?

He makes to open it - carefully, of course, and he wonders if he should be holding it with his bare hands in the first place - but when he tilts the stapled pages something slides out. A lot of something slides out onto his feet.

"Great."

He crouches down to gather them - and for the second time in the past ten minutes he freezes.

Someone took the time to carefully cut these sketches out of larger sheets of paper to hide them in the comic. Tony gingerly picks up a yellowed piece and stares at the man in the uniform. Frowning he pulls the comic off the desk and places it on the floor to compare the Captain America within the pages with the Captain America drawn in Howard's hand. He flips through the panels detailing the transformation of a frail man into a super soldier and the reveal of a Nazi spy to stop at a panel of the soldier in that colorful uniform.

The difference in style is clear cut; there's something inherently gaudy, awkward, and exaggerated about the 40s comic but the man his father sketched seems so natural and life-like. There's something about the slope of his shoulders and the weight of his gestures, the strange juxtaposition of the man's impressive build and the kind, unassuming smile on his face that's telling Tony that this man is-_was _real.

That's not possible.

Something pings in the back of his head. Fury was saying something as he left Tony in SHIELD's care and he managed to pick up "patch a line to Ross" and "don't recall giving permis... use the serum on someone we didn't screen" before the walls of his mansion bounced Fury's voice elsewhere.

Maybe he should take another look at some of the notebooks he tossed aside, and rewatch some of the reels. Tony makes note of this as he picks up another sketch, and then another and another, studying the variations in the _very_ patriotic uniform as it slowly transformed from something straight from the pages of the comics into something realistic and _wearable_. At the same time he notices the drift in focus, the fewer details given to the uniform - he's assuming these were all sketches for someone's battlefield uniform, ridiculously weird as it all looks and wouldn't that be like walking around with a bulls-eye painted to your back? - and the more attention paid to the man's handsome, determined face and the very natural feel of his form.

Someone was obsessed, Tony thinks, and his name was Howard. Odd to think that his father didn't swing just for the women. And maybe he should go find something to eradicate the images taking shape in his head. He kneads at his forehead with finger and thumb, shakes his head, and then looks down at the sketch in his hand; underneath yet another drawing of the man is his father's scrawl. It's in pen and done long after the pencils were laid down. It's also slanted and the letters get loopier with each word. Tony wonders if he was drunk when he wrote...this...

_Where are you, Steve? I can't find you. I can't let you go._

Steve? Where did he read that name? Tony glances at the comic, and then slowly, disbelievingly, flips back a few pages and scans the text until his eyes land on a name.

_"Steve Rogers."_

Tony sits down on the floor.

"That's not possible. That's just not possible."

_It's quite possible, sir. As you instructed I pulled up several classified files with regard to Lieutenant General Ross's attempts to revive what was called the Super-Soldier Program in World War-_

His fingers migrate to his right temple and knead at the spot. "Not now. Why don't you...find out when they stopped running these issues?"

_Yes, sir._

When he thinks about it his father never talked much about his life during the war. Tony didn't ask much either, especially since as he got older Howard became more aloof and critical. Most of what he learned about his father's exploits he learned at MIT, which boiled down to "various clandestine weapons programs and the Manhattan Project".

Could one of those programs be this super soldier program? Or was "clandestine weapons programs" just code for _the _super soldier program? Tony isn't putting it past SHIELD to rephrase everything in order to keep its secrets.

It's quite possible, with the comic and these sketches and a couple previously baffling notebooks, that his father was heavily involved in it at some point. Tony sets down the sketch and slides the comic over, starts from the beginning and gingerly flips each page over as he reads. If the events in the panels parallel what happened in reality then only one super soldier was made before things went disastrously wrong. He looks at the sketches he laid out before him and picks up the one with the drunk scribble. He rereads the three sentences and thinks back on the strange tape of his father and the woman named Peggy, then shakes his head to clear out the questions.

_Sir, the title _Captain America Comics_ was superseded by _Captain America's Weird Tales_ and ended its run in February 1950. The given explanation is that interest in superheroes waned following World War II._

"Bet SHIELD had something to do with it," Tony says. "Wouldn't be surprised if they shut it down to hush everyone up."

He notices a discrepancy in the small stack of sketches, like something of a different material worked its way in there. Sandwiched between two drawings of this Star Spangled Man is a folded piece of paper, thick and textured as though it was produced with the artist in mind. Tony presses his lips together, rubs his moustache and frowns to himself as he picks it up and carefully unfolds it.

Someone with far more skill had drawn a young Howard Stark holding up an odd round shield. Tony blinks, not sure what to make of it. The family resemblance is there but the expression on his father's face is completely foreign; memories of the man looking relaxed and well within himself, pleased with his work and with life, are so few and far in between. There's not even a hint of the playboy reputation Howard had cultivated during the wartime period; this artist - "Since when did Dad hang out with artists?" - was there at some point in his father's life to capture the genuine Howard Stark, and Tony presses his hand to his chest right above the arc reactor against the small hot flare of envy.

There's something else, though, something that must explain the attention and care given to each stroke, each smudge, each line, each detail and gesture that made up this portrait. Whoever drew this actually cared about Howard.

"Who are you?" Tony mutters, and then his eyes fall to the signature at the bottom.

Smudged and faded as most of the letters are he can still make out the "S" and the "R" of the first and last names. It's not hard to guess that the artist's name is Steve Rogers.

"You're..."

* * *

><p>"...joking."<p>

"I'm afraid I'm not, Mr. Stark."

"I distinctly recall you saying I was meeting the rest of Fury's boy band group in an hour."

"No, I said you were forty minutes _late _to a meeting. We sent you a memo three hours ago."

"I dismissed it. My name wasn't on it."

"Which is why I dropped by for a visit. To make sure you weren't late to both meetings."

Is it just him or is Coulson's voice _radiating _high levels of smug? It can't be healthy for such a small guy like him.

"You're enjoying this, aren't you?" Tony accuses.

"I enjoy doing my job."

"Ever heard of being fashionably late?"

"I know you're quite familiar with it. Unfortunately our line of work doesn't enjoy being fashionably late. Bad things happen."

Tony's still irritated about Pepper and Coulson kicking him out of the garage into the cockpit of the prototype jet he'd been building for SHIELD. He also loves seeing how far he can push this unassuming agent until he snaps but while being testy about flying to New York City at least twenty minutes earlier than usual he notices that the narrow hallway they're walking through isn't the one they usually take to SHIELD's giant fancy meeting room.

Shortcut, maybe. Wait, what meeting was he late for again?

"What's this meeting about?" he asks.

Not surprisingly Coulson gives him a non-answer. "You're lucky he's a patient man."

"Never took Fury for the patient type."

Coulson smiles. "We're not talking about Colonel Fury, Mr. Stark."

"Oh we're not? Then what..." Where the hell are they? "Where the hell are we?"

"The reason why Colonel Fury asked you to come two hours early," Coulson says as they swing left into an even narrower hallway; at the very end are two SHIELD agents, including a gorgeous brunette, "is because we believe this meeting should be held first to clear up a few things. Agent Carter."

The brunette nods and steps aside. "He's inside."

She gives Tony a funny look, which isn't encouraging at all, but then Coulson is opening the door and there's a sudden iron grip on Tony's elbow dragging him into the room.

It's small, the walls bare and windowless; the light is a horrible, soul-sucking white and he grimaces inwardly, wonders how he'd look if he pulled out his sunglasses - wait, they're in the jet. Even more distracting is the sudden jerky movement in the vicinity of the table in the middle of the room and his attention quickly swerves to the military man stumbling over his feet while quickly righting a chair. Coulson just stands to the side, hands clasped in front, watching and waiting.

Tony opens his mouth to ask Coulson who the hell he is but then the man looks up and it feels like his arc reactor is imploding.

There's no mistaking who he is, despite the sharp army green dress uniform, the shy skittishness giving way to utter shock, and the fact that he was born in the _20s _and yet looks like a kid barely out of college. Tony's seen that face a thousand times since he first found them in his father's suitcase, had wondered and pondered about the connection to Howard when he wasn't destroying knock-offs of his suit and completing tasks for SHIELD - with the greatest reluctance, mind you.

He's a handsome face with handsome lines but now that Tony's seeing him with his own eyes he can see the sincerity and kindness and strength that must've made him a real superhero of the 40s. He's the lighthouse in this room, drawing everyone in like ships to safe harbor. Tony can't deny the tug in his mind and his heart, like he _wants _to follow this man anywhere and everywhere, and now he's starting to understand why his father was so obsessed.

Why Howard was in love for so long.

His eyes are fixed on Tony, a deep clear blue despite the light, and his mouth is moving, those perfect lips forming a single word, two syllables. There's no sound but Tony can read lips when he wants and he knows what was just said.

"Mr. Rogers," Coulson now says, and Tony starts, remembers that the agent is there, too. "This is Mr. Sta-"

"Name's Tony," he interrupts, striding over and holding his hand out. "Howard's son."

The grip is firm and very, very warm. Tony swallows hard against a dry mouth and doesn't quite let go.

"Steve," Captain America says. "Steve Rogers...sir."

"Oh don't call me that," he says automatically. "You make me feel old. Just call me Tony."

It's odd the way the kid smiles; it's not that it's as bright as the rest of him - it's so much brighter - but that it's so hopeful. Like _he's _the one who found something, or someone, safe. "Okay...Tony."

"Now that's more like it."


End file.
